Not to far along on my eastward run across British Columbia I encountered the same thing that affects travel in Alaska in the spring, and summer.
Yes Construction. This one was well marked with warning of delay signs for KM and KM. Some signs suggested turning back and going another route. This sounded like a lot of trouble, I will just keep going and see what happens. The stoppage was so long in coming that I thought maybe it is over, but it wasn’t. Fortunately when I did have to stop, I was towards the head of the line and could see giant trees and rocks flying off the mountain ahead. Exciting stuff, and the delay was only about a ½ hour. I did think it strange that they were working on the road, since the road I was on was in pretty good shape but just around the bend I saw that this wasn’t road construction at all but a pipeline project. The Pacific Trails Pipeline if you really want to know, and it isn’t even a oil pipeline but a natural gas line to bring gas from Summit Lake B.C. to the Kitimat area.
Now if you have ever sat in a window seat on a south bound from Alaska 737 and looked down a few hundred Km from Prince Rupert, you probably saw Kitimat, and didn’t even know it. North bound its just a few hundred Km from Port Hardy.
Not surprising the towns of Penticton and Osoyoos, that were tiny cities when I traveled there for motorbike rally’s in the 1990’s are both major cities now.
At Greenwood I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It looked
like a giant mountain of Asphalt. Hmm I thought that I had discovered all the asphalt
the Canadians haven’t been using on the Alcan all these years, that this would explain
the chip seal and calcium chloride, that made riding the Alcan when wet seem
like you were on a surface of almost melted ice cream and porridge.
Upon further investigations my theory was disproved as the mountains of rock turned out to be tailings left from when Greenwood was the central smelter for the copper ore mined in the area.
What could go wrong with giant piles of slag and tailing, by
a water source?
R-V parks have all been pretty basic, and unfortunately it
is too early in the season for most of the Provincial Parks to be open.
In Castlegar, the park was for Adults only. No one under 18 allowed. Everything worked, and the site was level. The park was along a high cut bank of the Kootenay river, and even the river was quiet.
After Castlegar I really had no choice but to turn south
back to amerika. Oh boy another border crossing.
I only had to wait a short time, but I noticed that now every lane has a Radiation Portal Monitor System. I was instantly worried that my microwave oven would be confiscated. Oh well more storage space. The officer was very nice, and we were having a great time talking about things. She presented me with a dazzling array of guns for my choosing, and asked if I had any banned books on board, and my Kindle version of The Lacuna was not on any list…Yet... Glad I got through that, but then she asked me if I was carrying any chicken eggs. I told the truth. Yes, I have 4 eggs. She said to hand them over, as they might be carrying avian influenzas Now according to the CDC avian influenzas spreads by saliva, nasal secretions, and feces, and I have never found any of that in an egg, but I handed them over, as I didn’t want her to take my gun back, and now I wonder was she making an omelet or maybe a meringue?
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